Today we begin a series on parenting. This began as a planned series of three messages. Well into the preparations, it grew to four. And if you folks keep asking me specific questions—are you going to talk about this, are you going to talk about that—it may grow to five, I don’t know. We’ll see how that goes.
We, the elders, have talked about this and we thought it’d been a while since we’ve had an emphasis on this. We hesitate taking Sunday mornings for this because there are a number here, of course, who no longer have children at home. We recognize that. I hope, as Pastor Greg said, that there’ll be something of profit for whatever area of influence you folks have with children. If you find none, well, then we thank you for your patience.
I was talking to my mother yesterday. She usually tunes in and watches the Sunday morning messages here from her home in St. Paul and told her that I’ll be preaching on parenting. She said she wouldn’t be watching today. It’s too late. She said she’s already messed up. It’s too late to fix it.
I do not plan in this series to give a lot of specific tips and tricks, how to manage and micromanage the kids during their days and so on. We’ll try to do some of that as it’s needed, but that’s not the focus, and particularly this morning, that is not the focus. We’re going to deal this morning with something broader based, something that gives us a right perspective on parenting. I think this is something that is absolutely fundamental to a right and an informed parenting, and that is to look at Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 15, in particular the first part of the verse.
The title of the message today is, “The Child’s Foolish Heart.” Proverbs 22 verse 15: “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” Let’s look to the Lord in prayer.
Our Father, we can think of few things in this world more precious to us than our children. We thank you for the families of Reformed Baptist Church. What a blessing it is to see these little ones grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They are dear to our hearts and, of course, to their parents. They are just adored. We pray that you would give them, each of them, wisdom as they seek to bring up their children for Christ. We pray that you’ll give them insight, give them an understanding of the obstacle that is faced, and give them an understanding of their role and their obligations before you. And, Lord, we pray that you’ll give them success. As you turn our hearts to your word and help us to learn from it, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As small children, of course, we never adequately appreciated just how much we needed our parents. When we were newborn, we were utterly dependent upon our parents for absolutely everything. We were not independent in any sense of the term. By the time we were walking, dad and mom needed to micromanage every moment of every day just to keep us from hurting ourselves. We would rush headlong over the top of the stairs, we would play with sharp objects, we would stick those sharp objects into the electrical outlets, we would play with glass, and if it broke we would play with broken glass, all in the complete ignorance that we were working toward danger.
Or he could be like my older brother, who, when he was little, crawled into the kitchen. And my dad was babysitting, and he made his way behind the stove and found the ant poison. When my dad came in and found him there, he looked up at him and said, “Num num, daddy.”
We were so dangerous that our parents had to make cages for us. Of course, we didn’t call them cages, we called them play pens. They had to make play pens—cages—for us to keep us from hurting ourselves. And we got a little older and we’re still not safe. And I remember when I was a young boy, when I would do something wrong or do something stupid, my dad had a question that he would always ask. It always puzzled me. He would look at me with a puzzled expression on his face: “What’s the matter with your head?” You know, how do you answer a question like that? And there were times when I remember wondering, why did I do that? I don’t know. And of course, you answer that way, like a kid does. “What’s the matter with your head?” and you say, “Mm-mm.”
It was a long time, in fact, before we were safe as children. For a long time, as children, we were very likely to make mistakes, to make decisions and choices that resulted in our unhappiness. And we were very unlikely to see the connection. We would be unhappy after foolish choices, and we’d still wonder why we’re unhappy. And we couldn’t see the connection between foolish choices and our unhappiness.
Now, of course, as the child grows, he begins to shed some of that foolishness until he finally realizes that it’s dad and mom who are foolish. And then who knows how long before they are able to recognize that, oh, dad and mom have grown up and they’re not so stupid anymore. And all through our teen years and beyond, it never occurs to us that our parents were actually more concerned for our well-being than we were. And all of this because, as our text says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. And most foolish of all, a child would be prone to think that he will find his highest fulfillment and highest happiness in rebellion against his creator. And he’s likely to think that temporal pleasures will outweigh eternal ones. Foolishness bound in the heart of the child.
The Theology Of The Fool In The Book Of Proverbs
I think it would be good for us to back up and see something of the theology of the fool in the book of Proverbs. This, as you know, is a prominent theme: fool, foolish, foolishness, folly. It’s a big theme in the book of Proverbs and it’s set in contrast to wisdom. The wise man—you have these two leading characters through the book of Proverbs, and sometimes they’re personified in various ways, but these two leading characters—you have the fool and you have the wise man.
You have the simpleton as well in Proverbs, the man who kind of hangs between. He’s just so simple he doesn’t recognize the folly that he pursues, and he’s likely to be led astray, and he’s almost as bad off as a fool, except that the fool is more committed to it. And this is a huge theme in the book of Proverbs, and I think it’d be helpful for us to glance back—we’ll come back to chapter 22 here—but look at Proverbs chapter one. And here we have stated for us something of the theme of the book of Proverbs. He states his theme in Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
So here we have this contrast. We have the wise and we have the fool. And the characteristic of the wise is that he fears God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. This is very similar to what we find in Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” So the fear of the Lord is the foundational first step of knowledge. It’s the first step of wisdom. So you don’t know anything rightly unless you recognize God rightly and start from there.
There have been Christian philosophers who have tried to expound on that and worked their way out in fascinating implications with regard to the sciences and all kinds of things—that, apart from the fear of the Lord, you don’t understand anything correctly. More to the point in Proverbs is this general idea of wisdom and living life successfully in a way that is in your best interest and in a way that honors God. That’s what wisdom is. And the characteristic of the wise man is that he fears God and that, beginning at that point, life is sorted out and he’s able to navigate his way through. And understanding God rightly and situating himself rightly before God, in the fear of God, he’s able to make his way through life successfully.
Now in contrast to that, for the second part of verse 7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” And so in contrast to the wise or the wise man, we have the fool. In the perspective of Proverbs, the fool—this is important to recognize—the fool is the one who behaves in a way that is morally wrong and self-destructive. The fool is the one who behaves in a way that is morally wrong and self-destructive. So the fool hates, despises wisdom and instruction.
So chapter 5, if you would like, verse 23: foolishness is that which animates and ultimately destroys the wicked. Who is the wicked? Well, he’s the one who behaves like a fool. And he is destroyed like a fool. Foolishness has directed the way he lives, and now because of his foolishness, he’ll be destroyed accordingly. So the fool is a fool in every sense of the term. He does what’s wrong, and he does what is self-destructive. It’s not in his best interest at all, but he pursues it anyway.
And so the characteristic of the fool here in chapter 1 and verse 7 is that he despises wisdom and instruction. He does not want to be told what to do. He knows better, and he confidently then pursues his folly. He has an inward bias toward sin and an inward bias toward foolishness and against God and against what is right. He’s biased toward what is foolish and evil. A preference for sin; in Proverbs, the fool is one who has a preference for sin. He has a distinct propensity to evil, that is his bent, and it is so because he knows better.
So, Proverbs 13:19: “To turn away from evil is an abomination to a fool.” That’s the fool. To turn away from evil? Well, that’s stupid. That’s the way the fool speaks. And so foolishness has twisted his appetites, his desires, his drives, his ambitions. It’s perverted the way he perceives life. This is the guy who is often wrong, but never in doubt. He pursues his folly with confidence.
Proverbs 14:16: he sins with confidence. “The wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but the fool rushes right in.” It’s like the child running headlong over the top of the stairway. The fool goes right into his sin confidently and he’s just assuring himself that this is gonna work out well. He’s a fool. He does what is morally wrong and that which is self-destructive. And he’s like, Proverbs 26:11, he’s like the dog that returns to its vomit. Disgusting. Why would a dog do that? Answer: because it’s a dog. “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.” He pursues it headlong and full of confidence. He knows it’s going to work out well. It doesn’t. It hurts. It ruins lives. It hurts his family. And he goes back to it again. You think, why in the world would you do that? What in the world is wrong with your head? And answer: he’s a fool, doing what fools do.
Characteristic of the fool is that he’s confidently bent on evil and ignorantly self-destructive. That’s the characteristic of the fool in the book of Proverbs. He’s confidently bent on evil and ignorantly self-destructive. And our text, Proverbs 22:15, tells us that that foolishness is bound up in the heart of your child.
Now, Proverbs doesn’t speak in the language of the theologian. In theology, we refer to this as the doctrine of original sin. That’s the doctrine we’re dealing with today, applied to children. Now, in Reformed circles, we tend to speak more in terms of total depravity, that every part of our being, every faculty of our soul is tainted with evil. And we’re driven by that, and we’re animated by that.
When our children are young, I’m sure you’ve done this as parents. I did. I think every parent probably has. Your child is sleeping at night and you like to go into the bedroom and just look at him lying there sleeping. He looks so sweet and innocent. And it never occurs to us at a time like that, that in their heart is a bias that will drive them away from God and a bias that will drive them to their own self-destruction. Foolishness is bound up in their heart. And so we pray as they grow older that they will not drift morally, and they will not drift spiritually, and we forget that the drive to do so is already bound up in their hearts. That’s where they’re heading. All that is needed is an opportunity, release from the restraints that mom and dad put on them, because foolishness is bound up in the heart.
We do not—and this is not true just of your children, this is true of every last one of us—we do not start out as a clean slate and only later become polluted as we’re exposed to evil influences. It is a horrifying realization, and it may be very politically incorrect to say it, but it is a horrible realization, and it’s so awful that we tend not to consider it at all, that that precious child whom we adore, left to himself, will choose hell, and he will ruin his life in the meantime. Foolishness is bound up in the heart.
He will come to a point where he wonders whether or not doing street drugs might be a good idea. What is wrong with your head? He’ll go off to college. He’ll hear the brainwashing professor. He’ll come out spouting the lines: communism works. He’ll listen to the world. And he’ll think, I think I might be happier if I pretend I’m a girl. He will think that his highest pleasures are found in sin. He’ll argue with you over it. He’ll fight you for it. And he’ll rebel not only against you, but he will rebel against God all the while thinking—thinking confidently—that he’s pursuing his highest pleasure and fulfillment. Foolishness is bound in the heart of the child.
There’s no lack of evidence for what our text tells us either. It’s as plain as we can see. It’s like that famous quote from G.K. Chesterton who said that original sin is one of those doctrines for which we have empirical evidence. You see it every day and you see it in yourself and you see it in your child. No one ever had to teach you how to be selfish, self-centered, arrogant, violent, greedy. No one ever had to teach you to do that. And no parent yet has ever had to sit down with his child and say, “Now look, this is how you tell a lie. And this is how you cheat. And this is how you throw a tantrum against dad and mom when you don’t like what we do. And this is how you clobber your sibling.” We never had to teach our kids that.
One of the fascinating things in historical theology, I think, is just hilarious. Albrecht Ritschl, he’s a big name in 19th-century theology. He’s one of the leading theologians of the era. He is often referred to as the father of liberalism. That’s not quite true; Schleiermacher gets that title. But in terms of its popularization and the influence that he had directly and immediately, Ritschl was the guy. He denied all of the doctrines of the faith—virtually all of them. He didn’t want to believe in judgment and hell and didn’t want to believe in substitutionary atonement and penal satisfaction of atonement. Things like, you can’t have that kind of stuff. That’s old-fashioned. You certainly don’t believe in the miracles. The modern mind can’t tolerate that.
He develops a whole new theology of liberalism, theological liberalism. Now one of the doctrines that he denied was this doctrine of original sin. And what’s really strange is that he’s teaching now the original goodness of every person. And what’s interesting is that he offered young children as evidence. And he writes: “Our attempts to educate our children rest on the assumption of a general, even if indefinite, inclination to good.” So we teach our children because we believe they’re basically good. Now I read that and I think, what world do you live in?
Benjamin Warfield was more intelligent than I am and he responded in a way that I think is in keeping with Proverbs 26: “Answer a fool according to his folly.” He responds: “Such a theory does great honor to the children which Ritschl has seen grow up around him. We need to confess, however, that those we have known do not confirm it.”
But it’s basic to informed parenting, the sober recognition about our children. It shapes our job; it shapes our perspective on parenting. If we love that child, if we’re concerned for his well-being, temporally and eternally, we must recognize at the outset that foolishness is bound up in his heart. We must understand that this precious gift from God will destroy himself. He will ruin his own happiness, temporal and eternal, because he thinks he knows better. And it is your responsibility as a parent to stand in the way between your child and his or her own self-destruction. That’s the job.
If you love your child: teach, train, instruct, admonish, discipline. In every possible way, steer your child away from the foolishness that’s in his heart. That’s your job—your role as a father and as a mother to become for your children God’s means of grace to rescue them from their own heart. Proverbs 29:15: “A child left to himself brings his mother to shame.”
So if you view your role as a parent to, well, I hope I can get these kids grown up and keep them out of jail and keep them out of trouble with the law, keep them from drugs and keep them from getting pregnant or getting somebody pregnant—if that’s the way you view your role as a parent, you’re aiming way too low. Your goal is nothing less than to see them rescued from their own heart, to see their souls subdued by divine grace, and bowing the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s your goal.
And we’ll deal with more of that as we go along in the series. I recognize, and I’ll say this again, I’m sure—I recognize that there are no guarantees. Many a wise father has had a foolish son. There are no guarantees. But this is our goal: to rescue them from the foolishness that’s in their heart, and to bring them to where they are subdued by God’s grace.
Now, for my part, I am thankful for parents who recognized that, and I’m thankful that they did their parenting accordingly. We had lots and lots of fun in our home. Our home was just a happy place. It was delightful growing up with my parents. They saw to it that it was a loving and accepting and a happy place in every respect. No regrets whatsoever. No “I wishes” or anything like that. Wonderful home. But they never assumed that they were obligated to give me what I wanted. They never felt obligated that because I want it, they somehow are obliged to give it. They were not child idolaters. They didn’t buy into all the foolishness that you’re hearing today: if your child wants it, you should give it to him; don’t ever say no, that would warp his self-esteem; and don’t ever say that’s bad, and don’t ever say that’s wrong. All the foolishness that you’re being fed today, they didn’t buy into any of that.
They saw it as their responsibility before God to identify the foolishness in my heart and in my life, and to steer me away from it. And when God gave my wife and me children of our own, we determined that they would never be able to look back and say, “Dad and Mom didn’t point us away from our foolishness.” I knew that there were no guarantees, and so we prayed that God would intervene in grace, but we determined that if they remembered anything about us, they would know that the religion we professed on Sunday was the religion we lived on Monday to Saturday as well.
I can’t say that we were experts. And in fact, I have known Christian parents who have done better. But I can tell you that we determined to be experts in parenting, and we did everything we could. We pursued this with a diligence to be the best parents that we could, and we would sit up at night, and we would talk about it. How’s Gina? How’s Jimmy? Where are they? What should we be doing differently? Is there something we need to pursue? One thing that we did, very conscientiously, is we shunned—deliberately excluded—all secular counsel on parenting. All of it. I’ll say more about that as we go along, I’m sure. But we explored the scriptures, we thought it through long and hard, we trusted that God would give instruction on how to raise our children. We would talk to successful Christian parents. “How did you do this? What did you do? What do we need to know?” We pursued it in every way that we were able. Our children weren’t too important to do anything less.
Related Exhortations
Now we’ll explore some of this as the series goes on, but let me give you some related exhortations on this much this morning.
1. I Want To Talk To Your Children
Children, children, give me your attention, listen up. You need to know this about yourself: that foolishness is bound up in your hearts. If you have any self-interest at all, if you are concerned for yourself and your well-being at all, recognize that you need dad and mom. You need to listen to them. You need to learn from them. You need to obey them.
You need not listen to your heart. You will hear it and you will be told, “Listen to your heart and that will always lead you right.” That’s a lie. You will hear it said that when you don’t know what to do and you’re facing decisions, just look inside and recognize that that’s the voice of foolishness. Don’t listen to your heart; follow the Lord’s instruction. Listen to your parents as they teach it to you. Don’t think that you know better. In fact, you know what Proverbs 28 says? “He that trusts his own heart is a fool.” That’s just exactly the opposite of what you’re being told today. Today it’s listen to your heart, follow your heart, look inside and you’ll—no. He that trusts his own heart is a fool because foolishness is bound up in the heart. Children, recognize how much you need dad and mom and how much you need to learn from them and to listen to them and to obey them. And at least have the sense to recognize that they have your welfare in mind.
2. Recognize The Obstacle That You Face
Now let me talk to you parents. And first off from our text, I have to say this, and that is: recognize the obstacle that you face in parenting. Recognize the obstacle that you face. It’s not necessary to be Reformed to recognize the truth of original sin—that the inbred inclination of your child’s heart will lead him to ruin, and it is your job to stand in the way. And when you think and you’re tempted to feel that in the interest of peace, you just let the child have his own way, recognize that you at that point are contributing to his ruin. Recognize the obstacle you face.
3. Take Your Responsibility Seriously
Number two, parents, take your responsibility seriously. Successful parenting doesn’t just happen. Your children, their lives, and their eternity are worth the effort. Don’t just go with the flow. For God’s sake, please don’t listen to the secular counsel. They get it wrong all the time. Listen to what God has had to say. Think and evaluate and assess your children and yourselves. Become experts. Become, as best as you’re able, the leading authority on parenting.
We’ll see some of that next week. Go through Proverbs 1 through 9, where the sage sits down with his son and introduces him to scenario after scenario and says, “Here’s what foolishness does, and here’s what the wise man does, and here’s where the folly ends, and here’s where wisdom ends.” Take your responsibility seriously.
4. Determine That You Will Learn From God
Next, well I said I’d come back to it and I’ve already mentioned it twice: determine that you will learn from God, and let me underline that. Determine that you will learn from God how best to rear your children. I’ll say it very frankly, I am very concerned when I see Christian parents reading secular counsel on parenting. I’m very concerned every time I see it. I can’t understand why they would do that. All of the evidence—all of the evidence—is they got it wrong. Look at what they’ve produced over succeeding generations. The further they have drifted from biblical counsel, the worse each generation becomes in terms of its behavior and in terms of outcomes. All of the evidence is they got it all wrong. If they happen to get anything right, well, you’ve got that anyway.
Learn from God how best to rear your children. Don’t trust your children to secular counsel. Don’t ever think that somehow they’ve got it better. And you know what? Because of the lingering remains of foolishness in your own heart, at times you’re going to be tempted to think that maybe God got it wrong. You’re gonna find it in Proverbs and then think, “Yeah, but counselors today say,” and you need to recognize that that’s just the foolishness of your own heart. And you’re gonna feel pressured to conform to society’s new standards regarding child-rearing. You need to recognize it as the foolishness that it is. Your children are too precious to surrender to secular counsel. Learn from God how best to rear your children.
And you need to determine that for the sake of my children—their welfare, temporally and eternally—God’s counsel will reign in my heart and it will direct all of my parenting. And that will shape then all of your perspective on parenting and all that you do as a parent in every decision that you make. Well, recognize your role, recognize the obstacle that you face, resolve that in three blinks when your child is grown and gone, you will not regret that you have neglected what is most important. Pray that God will use you to steer your child to wisdom—for God’s glory, for your happiness, and for their well-being.
Well, we’ll unpack more of that as we go on. But before we go this morning, I want to look at our text one more time, and I want to still see now the entire verse. And I want to point out just one thing that this verse has to offer us.
Proverbs 22:15: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.”
We’ll deal with discipline in a later message and we’ll talk about that and the rod and all of that. What I want you to notice here is that what this verse offers you as a parent is a happy prospect. All this negative stuff that we’ve been saying about children, how foolishness has been bound up in their hearts—it shouldn’t leave us feeling in despair. This verse is intended to leave us with a happy prospect. It’s like what we find back up in verse 6 of Proverbs 22: “Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
That’s the way it works. Now, yes, there are no guarantees. Yes, there are exceptions. Wise fathers have had foolish sons. Yes, yes, yes. And it’s right that proverbs are not promises. Proverbs are proverbs. But they are proverbs to state the way it goes. Don’t get hung up on the exceptions. What is being offered you in these verses is a happy prospect so that you can approach parenting with high expectations of success—that if you are diligent in following God’s instruction on raising your children, you can have a happy outcome.
And so you approach parenting then with joy, with high expectations. You recognize the obstacle, but you recognize also that God has given you the means and the role to overcome that. And so you set your goals high. And what you should be doing is looking at your child and projecting down the road. At age 18, where do I want to see that child? Age 20, age 22, where do I want to see them? And you parent accordingly. And you make your decisions accordingly. And you discipline accordingly. And you teach accordingly.
And you look ahead to age 18 and 22 and all of that, and you think, I want him to be a useful, productive member of society, yes, and respected and all of that—yes—but what I want most of all is to see his heart subdued by divine grace. I want to see him rescued from the foolishness that’s in his heart. And you parent with that in view. And every decision you make, every choice you make, every directive that you give to your child is with that shaping it. And we’ll pursue more of that as time goes on in this series. May God give us success in our homes. Amen. Let’s pray.
Our Father, our children are so precious to us—our grandchildren—you’ve given them to us as wonderful gifts. It is good for us to have this sober recognition of the realities of sin. It has infected our own hearts and it has infected theirs. Give us the grace, give us the wisdom, give us the will to pursue accordingly and give us success, we pray, in our parenting. In Jesus’ name.